


starving/faithful

by pixiepower



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Body Worship, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Yearning, it’s tender i promise!!!!!, this fic is rated e for enlistment mentions. and also explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:46:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28169472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower/pseuds/pixiepower
Summary: Joshua doesn’t know how they do it, how they can stand the weight of all those eyes on them all the time. How they can know that people are looking to them for leadership and guidance and just handle it, live up to that expectation. Joshua had it one time and he fumbled it so prolifically that it is probably lost forever.“Hey. Hey,” Minghao says, waiting for Joshua’s eyes to find his. “You don’t have to be everything to everyone.”
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 12
Kudos: 109





	starving/faithful

**Author's Note:**

> title from “take me to church” by hozier. yes, it’s that kind of fic.
> 
>  **note:** in this fic there is canon-typical mention of enlistment, closeting, religion (christianity), and plastic surgery, with varying degrees of brevity. if you need additional warnings please do not hesitate to reach out!

There is nothing that anchors a person in belief like failure.

Joshua is used to thanking his mom and God, in that order, for his successes. The blessings of his life, the group, his career, the things he’s capable of that his whole life through people have called  _ gifts— _

But the door to the dorm opens and closes, followed by two bedroom doors and finally his own, and Joshua just wants to wallow. He wants to shove his face into his pillow until all his makeup comes off, maybe blur his vision with tears to the dulcet tones of Khalid, and, most of fucking all, never hear the words _Going Seventeen_ and _hosting_ in the same sentence as his name ever again.

It is hard to stay positive when something  _ ‘Low pressure, Joshua-ssi, it’s a makeup episode, so don’t worry too much about it’ _ goes so thoroughly in the trash that it is surrounded by flies like that kid from the Charlie Brown specials, the smell so ripe that it makes your eyes water when you get close. 

Joshua closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Realization washes over him that he is just standing in the middle of his room, that his bag is still hoisted over his shoulder and the strap is twisted up and digging in, the weight of it enough to ache through the layers of his jacket.

His throat still aches, so he drops his bag and pads out to the kitchen, setting a kettle on to boil and leaning his forehead against the refrigerator.

The water has barely started to simmer when, “You did well today,” floats in from the doorway of one of the bedrooms.

Joshua tenses, the praise ringing hollow, too little too late, and he does not move from his position, the cold of the stainless steel sticking uncomfortably to his skin.

He half-expected it to be Mingyu, loud and sweet as he was during filming, ready to pile on more affirmations until Joshua can’t help but swallow thickly around his emotions and comb his hands through Mingyu’s hair and coo at him until Mingyu feels thoroughly appreciated. Because he is appreciated; Seokmin and Seungkwan and, Hell, even Jihoon, too, stepping on one another’s toes and yelling over each other for the benefit of the recording just to say,  _ ‘Well, we all know this is a shitshow, but you did your best and we love you,’ _ which was more than enough to nearly set Joshua off on camera. That really would have compounded the embarrassment, wouldn’t it? Schooling his features and laughing through his mortification was difficult enough. Joshua doesn’t know if he would have been able to make it.

But that was on set. Here, at home, it isn’t Mingyu. 

Minghao is hovering near the bedrooms, Joshua can tell, because no footsteps approach the kitchen, bare feet softly sticky on the floor. Minghao’s gaze bores through Joshua’s back even still, and Joshua almost hates how he can feel it.

Joshua can always feel Minghao’s eyes on him like the touch is physical. He would know it from a million miles away. There’s reciprocity in the way they can get lost in the throng, that thirteen can feel like a hundred but for the unfailing eyes on each other.

It’s why silence stings.

One by one they all clambered into the Carnival—which, first of all, theming a GoSe around a car that doesn’t even have a sponsorship contract with Pledis is an extremely weird choice that Joshua knows is above his pay grade but  _ still— _ and when it was Joshua’s turn, he held his candle close to his chest, hand cradling its flame out of the wind, and Minghao had gazed up at him from where his lithe body was curled small in the folding chair and accepted it, the long fingers of one hand curled around Joshua’s candle, the other secure on his own.

It felt so high school, standing there in the opening of the moonroof and waiting for his peers to tell him what they think of him. They’ve been together for a long time now, and he knows in his heart that he has twelve soulmates, that there is little they wouldn’t do for one another. But is that something you can ever really shake, after ten years in the American public school system?

Joshua shivered in the cold and he kept shivering under six, seven, eight members’ hesitant and awkward but genuine compliments and he waited, feeling awfully too powerful looking down at them from here. So he waited, and after a too-long beat the PA shouted for them to move on, waved an exhausted hand, and Joshua climbed down.

No complaints rang out. Everyone just wanted to get this whole episode over with as soon as possible.

Nobody jokes aloud anymore that things would be easier if they had fewer members, but Joshua thought it. Under the brief cover of darkness while he was alone in the car, he thought it, counting himself first to get axed, and immediately the crushing weight of guilt and shame rolled through him.

He collected his candle from Minghao, and avoided his eyes.

This one—this  _ one  _ opportunity. It would have been easy, for Minghao to say something. Less pressure than the magazine interviews where all eyes are on one person and they have to choose how much of themselves to lay bare.

Joshua just wanted—

Whatever.

“Thanks,” he says now, just to say something. It’s half-drowned out by the whistle of the kettle, and Joshua is just this side of too-rough tearing open the tea bag packaging.

“Bagged?” Minghao asks. He’s drifting closer.

When he picks up the kettle Joshua feels goosebumps prickle his upper arms, up his shoulders and over his back. “Can’t be bothered with loose. Trying to go to sleep soon.”

“Then you shouldn’t be having green tea at all, you know that.”

“You know what—” Joshua cuts himself off, setting the kettle down again and turning to face Minghao, elbows resting back on the countertop. His face is almost bare and his hair is wet at the tips, a practiced short showerer.

Something twists inside Joshua’s chest at Minghao’s expression, at the way he looks warm despite the fact that he’s in a tank top and loose pants. Joshua finds himself missing the matching pajama set, even despite the pretentiousness of it. The last time he saw it was during a quiet night in a few weeks ago, a bottle of wine disappearing between them, a comfortable silence spinning into an alcohol-warm one, dipping further still into gentle, heavy  _ goodnights  _ that were almost impossible to bear.

“I don’t.” It’s almost too quiet to hear, but Minghao doesn’t avoid Joshua’s gaze when he says it. He’s too good at that, in a way that Joshua will never understand. “Will you tell me?”

Joshua glances over Minghao’s shoulder. Light is still pouring out from under Seungcheol’s door, the flicker of a computer or two revealing that there’s still some activity in the dorm. Mingyu and Wonwoo’s room is dark.

So Joshua nods, and pads back into his room, knowing Minghao is only a few steps behind him.

Minghao closes the door behind him, and Joshua finally flops onto his bed, but rolls over to accommodate for Minghao at the foot of it. His leg is tucked up under his body, and his eyes are bright even in the dim light of Joshua’s lamp. 

Sometimes he can look so small.

He looks small, and he waits for Joshua to say something first.

Joshua sighs and sits up. His foot touches Minghao’s as he adjusts, and Joshua pulls it back before Minghao can—he doesn’t know. Bare feet brushing feels like too much. Minghao’s eyes feel like too much.

“Today was hard,” Joshua says carefully. It’s an understatement; he has to tread lightly lest he start to cry. They’ve all seen each other cry, that’s what happens when you basically grow up together, but once he starts he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop.

Minghao nods. 

“I guess I just… wanted to know what you thought.”

Brow furrowing just slightly, Minghao nods again, but slowly.

It feels like pulling teeth when Joshua elaborates, “When I was up. I wanted to know what you thought.”

Realization flickers into Minghao’s eyes, and then he softens, looking down at his hands like there are gentle flames in either one. His expression is unreadable, and he says quietly, “You handed me your candle and I thought—It felt like you knew. That we were all tired and cold and that Korean was coming like the last syrup in the jar and that I was proud of you anyway. You handed it to me and I thought you could—” Minghao looks back up, and Joshua is startled by the honesty in his eyes. “I thought you could feel it.”

Tension drains from Joshua’s shoulders, and he bows even lower, spine crumpling like the thing inside his chest he has spent years beating back. All he remembered was feeling exhausted and drained and that Minghao’s silence felt personal and worse, followed by hearing Minghao praise Vernon and Jihoon and feeling upset that he didn’t get the validation, the fucking words of affirmation that he feels guilty for wanting in the first place.

How  _ selfish.  _ He wasn’t the only one struggling, he wasn’t alone trying to make dinner with spoiled ingredients. Joshua wasn’t alone.

He isn’t alone.

“I’m sorry,” Joshua exhales. “I should have thought…”

“It was a lot of pressure on you. None of us expected it to be like that. None of us could have done better.”

It’s too generous; Seungkwan easily could have done better. Hell, even Seungcheol, or Jeonghan. 

Joshua doesn’t know how they do it, how they can stand the weight of all those eyes on them all the time. How they can know that people are looking to them for leadership and guidance and just handle it, live up to that expectation. Joshua had it one time and he fumbled it so prolifically that it is probably lost forever.

When they go, what is Joshua supposed to do? They only have a few years left, but he’s sure they’ve already started to talk about it, one of the million private things said in their hushed voices and in the million glances that drip with meaning between them. When Seungcheol and Jeonghan enlist, Joshua will be the eldest. He can’t handle that kind of responsibility. He’s fine one on one, maybe even a good hyung sometimes, but he is suddenly drowning with the knowledge that he is not capable of all that, that he can’t be in charge, that  _ if I can’t even handle hosting one lousy fucking GoSe how am I expected to— _

They—they can’t ask him to be interim leader. They can’t. He can’t do it.

“Hey. Hey,” Minghao says, waiting for Joshua’s eyes to find his. “You don’t have to be everything to everyone.”

“What?”

Minghao has shuffled closer, his knees knocking against Joshua’s. “You don’t have to be everything to everyone,” he repeats. “You just have to be you. No one else can do what you do. Not for the group, not for anyone. Not for me.”

His voice is so low, it feels like a space heater. He’s so close. He doesn’t look so small anymore.

He used to look so small.

As soon as Minghao walked in, they gravitated to one another. They just… got it. People would group Minghao and Jun together constantly, and it was a relief, in some ways, to see how Minghao’s breath would come smoother just being able to express himself, to have someone with whom he didn’t have to stumble through thickets to share his thoughts, but they were less similar than people assumed.

Minghao said Joshua was the first person to say something to him, and maybe that was selfish too.

Maybe it was too much expectation, to see Minghao, all big eyes and determination, and to think they were more alike than everyone thought. Maybe the most alike, when speaking carefully and acting cute were all they could do to make sense of the roiling emotions inside of them. They were quiet because their thoughts were far too loud.

With a baker’s dozen boys piled into the practice room, earsplitting and exhausted at the same time, Joshua played his guitar for Minghao. Ran through his repertoire, Minghao’s back to the wall, knees drawn up to his chest as he curled up on the floor, Joshua sang every song he’d learned from 2009 until now. Songs Minghao had never heard of, songs Joshua had forgotten half the chords to, songs about loves that neither of them had ever experienced, but Minghao stared up at him then, and he thinks maybe both of them felt something like home in that moment.

Even now Minghao is still looking at Joshua, irises warm brown in the soft light, and when Joshua was feeling abandoned Minghao had felt trusted, validated and seen, two candles in his hands like he could physically hold what it meant to him, to have in his grasp, tangible,  _ It’s hard to adjust, right? It’s okay, I’ll be here to help. I l— _

There’s a pricking behind Joshua’s eyes. He opens his mouth, then closes it; he nods instead, throat too thick for words. Maybe he shouldn’t have abandoned that tea.

Minghao’s hand comes to rest on Joshua’s ankle where his foot sticks out. His fingers are just-washed warm, and his thumb fits into the divot of Joshua’s anklebone like he was the one who put it there.

_ I thought you could feel it. _

_ I didn’t understand anything, and you were the first to talk to me. _

_ I thought you could feel it. _

_ I felt at ease. _

_ I thought you could feel it. _

“Myungho—”

_ I thought you could feel it. _

_ I love you, hyung. _

_ I thought you could feel it. _

_ I thought you could feel it. _

_ I thought you could feel it. _

“Shua-hyung,” is all Minghao says in answer, and it hits Joshua like a truck. 

Joshua’s breath is coming in shudders, and when Minghao draws up, unfolding his body, Joshua’s arm gives. He tips back, head hitting the pillows, and one of Minghao’s palms settles into the covers next to Joshua’s ribs. It’s all core strength, Joshua knows, that Minghao is careful not to touch him anywhere except his ankle, even as his body stretches out like taffy, like dragon’s beard, like Minghao stretching in the practice room, hands to the ceiling, fingertips brushing heaven, and Joshua’s mind and heart race.

He doesn’t know how to want like this. Or at all.

Want and guilt occupy the same space inside Joshua, hand in hand, inseparable, and everything feels like he’s trying to strain maple syrup, impossible to parse. He wants it so much, wants so much to feel wanted. He wants so much so much it scares him.

Minghao is looking at him.

Minghao is looking at him like—

“It’s like listening to songs in English,” Minghao murmurs. The crown of his cheek brushes Joshua’s. Joshua can feel his mouth move, the muscles in his face shifting. Minghao’s nose touches his temple. His breath is still even, somehow. Joshua’s is roaring in his ears.

“What is?”

Minghao hums. “Watching you think. I can hear the music, I can feel how it’s supposed to feel, but I can’t understand it.”

“I think in Korean a lot more now,” Joshua tries. 

Not untrue, either. It’s a mess in there, though, and half the time Joshua can’t pull the right one out so he ends up saying four things half-spoken, but the point stands. Instead of two degrees apart, he and Minghao can meet in the middle. Minghao is always good at listening to him, anyway. And Joshua often has a hard time listening to anyone else.

A peal of laughter, held in the back of Minghao’s throat. The softest giggle, curling around Joshua’s ear, getting caught in his helix jewelry. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

Minghao’s eyelashes flutter, butterfly wings and costume organza, as he traces Joshua’s face with his own. The curve of his cheek grazing Joshua’s, his nose tracing his jaw; every time he speaks, the plush of his lips are a hair’s breadth away from Joshua’s skin. 

Skinship comes easily to Minghao, maybe because you can say everything without saying anything, and then there’s still plausible deniability if you’ve said too much.

But this isn’t—that. Minghao has never touched Joshua like this. He’s barely touching him, too, and Joshua feels aflame, a candle in hand, the tiny paper cup of his self-preservation doing little to prevent the wind from buffeting him off-kilter.

There’s no plausible deniability here. Joshua’s certain if anyone saw him now they would know everything. If Minghao pulls back, he’ll know.

“I can see it every time you tell yourself you don’t deserve to think well of yourself,” Minghao ghosts over Joshua’s earlobe, his breath warm like summer breezes on the ocean.

Idols thrive on praise. It’s the nature of the business. So then why is it simultaneously so easy and so fucking hard to seek it out?

“It’s not shameful to want to be appreciated.” Minghao’s thighs, skinny and strong, arrange themselves around Joshua’s hips, and suddenly Minghao is looking right down at him. There is nowhere for Joshua to run. “It’s not shameful to be loved.”

A beat lingers, held breath with chest heaving like ending fairy.

“To want to be?” Joshua breathes.

Minghao shakes his head, and Joshua gets so lost watching the shape of his nose and the long shadows under his eyelashes that he forgets to close his eyes when Minghao kisses him.

Minghao still tastes like makeup. Joshua will never understand why they fade concealer up the edges of his mouth, why the coordis think it’s cooler or more beautiful to hide. His mouth is warm, like the rest of him is, like he usually isn’t—Minghao runs cold, his long, delicate fingers chilly to the touch, warming themselves against the back of your neck, curling over your face, dipping into the hollow of your throat when pressed over your heart. He’s warm now, and he breathes unsteadily between the presses of his lips against Joshua’s.

Unsteadily.

Something inside Joshua that he’s kept pushed deep, deep down for the better part of six years snaps, and his hands fly up to Minghao’s hair, both palms sliding up the back of his head and cradling him close, molding his mouth to Minghao’s with more desperation than he strictly lets himself show. He drinks in the rise and fall of Minghao’s chest against his, the full, deep breaths expanding Minghao’s lungs, filling him out, the air stolen from Joshua’s own body. Readily given, in fact.

It’s like the first time his brain has been anything close to still in as long as Joshua can remember. It’s busy cataloguing each sigh and bitten-off noise, busy opening up for Minghao in ways he’s always been too afraid to hope for.

He’s always been afraid.

The place in his mind where he notices Mingyu’s tongue between his teeth, Jihoon’s perfect body control, Seungcheol’s biceps, Minghao’s abs, Minghao’s hands, Minghao’s laugh, is right next to the praise team place, the  _ no parties  _ place, the Friday, Saturday, Sunday next to his mom and her friends and his community leaders place.

_ “Steal some covers, share some skin,”  _ Minghao slurs against his mouth, syllables wrapping themselves in his accent, two degrees sweet on his tongue, and Joshua pulls back as much as he can, yanking his hands off Minghao’s body.

It’s hoarse when Joshua manages, “What—”

“Singing in English,” Minghao says, and it zips through Joshua that it’s half to a gasp when he does.

“Sorry, I,” Joshua interrupts himself with a greedy kiss, swallowing Minghao’s little sound of surprise like eucharist, “I can’t turn it off.”

Minghao’s mouth is glossy-wet when he pulls back, catching the soft glow of Joshua’s lamp, and before he can think better of it Joshua is appreciating Minghao’s lips, wishing it were all properly pink without all that concealer taking up half of it. It thunders through him, harps and trumpets, and he feels about to fall the same way.

Joshua is regarded with patience, with something calmer than he can imagine. He knows Minghao is meditative in the most literal sense, that he can sit with himself and be at peace, that he comes away with a better understanding of who he is and what he wants. 

That seems so distant and impossible; Joshua appreciates his quiet time, letting other people sing their feelings on his playlists and making beaded presents for the people he loves most in this world, but maybe it’s the conditioning, that he got too used to ambient noise, that he can’t stand to be in his own head. When Joshua sits with himself, the overanalysis and overthinking and the guilt and stress and panic set in, the urge to do something for someone else so he doesn’t have to think about  _ taking. _

“Hyung.”

Joshua’s eyes find Minghao’s again. Minghao’s eyes are lidded heavy, and he looks like he wants something.

“‘Hao?”

A tremor shivers through Minghao at that, his elbows bowing from the strain, and realization hits Joshua as soon as Minghao’s body dips, the hard line of him obvious through his thin layers for sleep. Even hard as he is, too, Joshua still has his jacket on. Mortification joins realization.

“I want—” Minghao does start after all, as though it’s easy, and Joshua begins to nod. Whatever it is, Minghao should have it. “I want—ah, hyung—do you—”

Joshua falters. He wants so much it hurts, but he wants nearly as much not to have to confess it.

Of course, Minghao sees it. “Focus on me,” he says, sitting back on his haunches and pulling Joshua up with him. 

Minghao pushes off Joshua’s jacket, the little brooch jingling as it hits the floor, and leans in close again. His nose touches Joshua’s, and they don’t quite kiss, deft fingers undoing the buttons of Joshua’s shirt, knuckles trailing appreciatively down the center of Joshua’s chest. Joshua has to help him pull the shirt down off his arms, and Minghao stares at Joshua like he can’t  _ not _ do it. 

Minghao looks at Joshua the way Joshua never let himself look at anyone before, the way where even just  _ looking _ made him feel like he was going to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Even after he left home, the fine line between fanservice and confession was always too thin to tread, and Joshua has never been as fleet-footed as he’d like.

“Sexy,” Minghao says, nearly too quietly. His hands find Joshua’s waist, thumbs pressing into the edges of his stomach, and Joshua feels this side of faint. Minghao’s hands are large in a delicate sort of way, everything long and lean and beautiful and lyrical like the rest of him, and they hold firm to Joshua’s waist like he could float away.

Maybe he will, with Minghao’s hands sliding up his body, cupping his chest with perfect palms. Minghao exhales sharply when Joshua’s next breath makes his fingers rise and fall.

“I thought you said you didn’t want to get big,” Joshua jokes lightly, as much as he can muster, “You told Carats.”

“I don’t lie,” Minghao says, tipping Joshua back again. His back hits the bed, cushioned by rumpled covers, not even untucked for bed yet, still mostly-made from this morning. “I like it on you.” 

With Joshua spread out like this, he feels too vulnerable, knees pressing together and chest feeling tight, even under Minghao’s hands, which smooth over Joshua’s bare skin like he’s learning an instrument. Joshua is played like a guitar, vibrations searing through him and sounding through his veins with pitch perfection, and maybe he’s just wound too tightly, but every graze of Minghao’s hands feels like plainsong.

Hands splayed on Joshua’s chest, one over his hammering heart, Minghao presses a kiss to Joshua’s mouth, and it’s laden with something unbearably tender and honest, something Joshua has been wondering is real his whole life, practically, this whole new life that has been fearfully and wonderfully made for him. The plush of Minghao’s lips, less makeup-bitter now, fit perfectly against his, the recent fillers fairly settled.

“Focus on me focusing on you.”

“Okay.”

Minghao’s mouth works its way down Joshua’s neck, which is almost too ticklish to stand. His eyes are crinkled with amusement when he glances up at Joshua’s twitching face, which drops into a slack-jawed expression as soon as Minghao’s mouth drags, parted and pretty, down the middle of his chest, all warm pink-gold that feels like candles, votives for a saint.

Joshua nearly wishes it were lighter in here, almost wishes they hadn’t spent so much time kissing already, so he could watch the too-pale smears of Minghao’s makeup spread like paint over his neck and down his chest afterward as proof that both of them are dressed down by this. 

But if wishes were fishes, beggars would eat, and Joshua already feels starving.

Minghao is exceedingly gentle. Joshua can’t see his tongue, can barely feel it, kitten licks and kisses exploding goosebumps over his skin. Minghao’s eyes are so bright, each flutter of eyelashes saying something close to  _ I can never forget this memory,  _ shaky handwriting now sure movements. My, how they’ve grown.

_ I’m really glad you came here,  _ Joshua answers via a gasp, via the arch of his back when Minghao’s mouth sweeps down his stomach, via the way he tenses and bursts gold sunlight through the clouds of fisted blanket when Minghao kisses his v line where it disappears into the satin red of these awful pants.

“I want—can—?” It’s half-eaten self-expression as much as it’s an offering, a tithe to Joshua’s shivering heart. Minghao says everything without saying anything.

Joshua would give him everything. So he does, nodding slowly but determinedly, rasping before he loses the nerve, “And—”

Minghao meets his gaze, sees Joshua’s hand at his chest, and watches the other gesture, plucking at his collarbone in a poor approximation of his desire. The smile that crosses Minghao’s face is heartbreakingly tender, a fondness Joshua always revels in when it’s turned on him onstage. His singular focus, something that feels like light shimmering down and warming him from the inside out. 

The expression doesn’t disappear when Minghao grabs the back of his tank top, pulling it over his head and baring his moonstruck skin to Joshua. Pink tints his ears at the way Joshua is staring at him, and Joshua flushes too, turning his face into the pillowcase to allow Minghao his moment.

He thinks he’s supposed to be loud, to turn onto his stomach and drool something filthy and unfamiliar, but everything aches too much like prayer come true, and that would be further away from what he’s capable of. But quiet comes easy to them, always has, and Joshua can’t tear his eyes from the lean ripple of Minghao’s back as Minghao unzips Joshua’s trousers, hooking fingers into his waistband and pulling them down, considerate of where he’s achingly hard.

“You, too,” Joshua says when Minghao runs fingertips next to the line of his erection, so close, so gentle. “I want you here,” he says, the hand on his chest a nervous fist.

Minghao’s eyes are sparkling soft. Proud. “Okay, hyung,” he replies, tugging Joshua’s briefs down carefully and shimmying out of his own.

At the graceful but silly motion, Joshua half-laughs, surprising himself, and Minghao’s giggle meets it. Something lightens in Joshua’s chest, and real laughter bubbles out of him, not strained like on set. Naked, here, under yellow-pink lighting, is less vulnerable. Or maybe that’s just the way Minghao is crawling up Joshua’s body, leaning down with a hand on his cheek to kiss him again. Each one and Joshua is born again.

“You’re doing well,” Minghao murmurs, hand sliding down Joshua’s neck, following the map his mouth made. 

His fingers squeeze one pectoral muscle gently, self-indulgent in a way that flares heat in the pit of Joshua’s stomach. Minghao only tends the fire when he makes an apologetic face and licks his palm wetly to wrap his hand around Joshua’s cock, cooing softly when Joshua sighs.

“Good.” Minghao says it almost absently, impossibly so when his eyes are so glued to Joshua’s face, watching carefully when he shifts down, sliding his hips against Joshua’s and exhaling sharply. “Good, good,” he repeats, voice catching.

Joshua winds a hand down, fingers tangling with Minghao’s. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Minghao breathes, and they’re moving, foreheads pressed together, sharing air and the gasping press of mouths, less kiss and more promise as they rock into their joined hands.

It collides with the hammering muscle in Joshua’s chest just how long he’s wanted this, Minghao’s quiet, high-pitched whimpers muffled into Joshua’s mouth a hymn he’s committing to memory.

“Myungho,” Joshua pants, lips brushing Minghao’s, and it says everything and nothing. 

It’s a gift, a blessing, a call, and Minghao’s response, a wanting, hitched, “Hyung, Shua-hyung,” careens Joshua closer to an emotion he never knew he’d feel this intensely.

More than he deserves, this boy, this man, this  _ angel—fuck,  _ fuck, Joshua’s sliding through precome and it’s not quite slick enough but it’s  _ real,  _ it’s Minghao, Minghao whose body moves like nothing else, whose big eyes and quiet hands feel like home, whose time and love and affection maybe don’t need to be spoken aloud after all.

Joshua is always listening.

He listens to Minghao’s voice pitch higher and higher, sure his own groans aren’t nearly as pretty, but the fingers on Minghao’s free hand are clutching at Joshua’s chest and his hips are stuttering into Joshua’s hand and Joshua is going to come.

Minghao’s voice cuts out on a gasp, and Joshua kisses him slow and deep. A few seconds that feel like hours later and Minghao trembles in his arms and spills into their hands. It goes through Joshua, ripping through him, and he wants it on tape, wiping the GoSe cassette and taping over it with the way Minghao clings when he comes, fluttering and moving endlessly, hummingbird heartbeat and heaven.

Before long Minghao inhales with a deep shudder and murmurs, “I've got you, it’s your turn, please,” and that’s the ball game. He nuzzles his face into Joshua’s cheek, sweet and instinctive, and Joshua keens under his breath and lets a flame like euphoria lick through him, cleansing.

It takes Joshua longer to come down than Minghao, and when he can fully open his eyes again, blinking like a newborn fawn in the low light, Minghao is pressing kisses to his jaw.

“Hyung?”

Joshua exhales long and slow and sated, and Minghao’s smile turns up against his skin. 

“Mm, okay, good.”

Joshua tries to stretch out his hand and finds it sticky, milk and honey. He’s sure Minghao’s doesn’t fare much better.

It’s easy to tumble out of bed, yank on some sweats from the floor, and dart in and out of the bathroom, thanking goodness for small miracles that the water heats up quickly. He closes Minghao’s door when he passes it in the hallway. Warm washcloth in hand, Joshua shuts his own door behind him gently and just—takes Minghao in, curled up small in his bed, hand held out carefully and belly-up like a docile creature. No fear. No worry. Just an obscene amount of calm and trust.

At just the sight of him Joshua is overcome, exhaustion crashing into him like a second great wave alongside his bone-deep fondness and love, syllables spilling into his mind and onto his tongue that give voice to the water he held back all these years.

He lets them pour out in the form of hummed phrases, hands cradling Minghao’s and sweeping gently between his fingers, meticulous. Each swipe clears his moonlit skin, and all that’s left when Joshua is done with his hand, his wrist, his stomach and softening cock, is the overwhelming sense that Minghao is so beautiful, his adorning the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

Joshua folds the washcloth and sets it on the floor, half-tucked under the bed, before climbing under the blankets and shaking them out over both of their bodies. He tucks himself close to Minghao, letting his nose brush his temple. He smells like shampoo and faded makeup and even more faded cologne. Joshua presses his lips to the spot.

“You could dye your hair.” Voice quiet with near-sleep, Minghao picks up a dropped thread.

Joshua knits with it: “Why?”

Minghao curls up under Joshua’s arm, one leg thrown over Joshua’s thigh. They might look like a scene from a movie, if Joshua could zoom out and look. “To put the past behind you.”

Joshua thinks of the hours spent in the chair, toning and developing and conditioning to make sure the white-blonde looks just right. “I’ve spent so much time, though.”

“Your choice. But if it doesn’t feel right anymore, you can change it. Be the part of you you want to have.”

Yawning, Minghao presses a full-mouthed kiss to Joshua’s throat, and the clawed, want-guilt place inside Joshua roars for marks, begs for them, simply because they are something he can’t have. Practicality floats down like a many-eyed angel, and he swallows the desire.

Maybe he can find the courage to ask another time. 

After all, God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle.

**Author's Note:**

>  **notes:** this takes place immediately following filming of “[going seventeen 2020] ep.39 carnival”; most italicized phrases are torn [directly from messages written to each other.](https://twitter.com/eightpaint/status/1340853706829352960?s=21)
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/pixiepowerao3) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


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